


The Light After the Rain

by elizziebeth13



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Avengers Endgame, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Suicide, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Stucky if you squint but like not enough to tag, Therapy, mentions of dead characters, mentions of the original 6 avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 12:12:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizziebeth13/pseuds/elizziebeth13
Summary: Steve makes a new friend in the support group after the snap.





	The Light After the Rain

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know man. This just bubbled out of me after seeing the Endgame Trailer. I wrote it in like 30 min. It is unedited.
> 
> ALSO some trigger warnings: Mentions of suicide and death. There are no scenes where anybody dies or commits suicide but the topics are heavily talked about and I want y'all to stay safe.

Before the snap, at Sam’s request, Steve had started going to a support group for those who had lost loved ones. It helped him process his grief over Bucky and Peggy a little, although it was pretty hard for a group of regular civilians to understand his struggles with time travel and his cryogenically frozen best friend.

After the snap, he kept going to the meetings. Only a few of the patrons were the same. It was hard for all of them. A counselor could help you through the grief of losing your father or your friend, that had happened to people before. But even Gene, the therapist who got her MD from Harvard medical school, who had helped people through the AIDS Crisis in the 80s, the terrorist attacks in 2001, and the attack on Manhattan in 2010 was a loss. She had taken to bringing home cooked meals and coaxing people to even say a few words. 

Steve knew every patron’s name, except one. A recent college graduate who told everyone to call her Rain. Steve actually really liked Rain. She had the same calming presence of Sam, was sharp as a tack like Tony, had the wit of Natasha, and a smile that was all Bucky. She hadn’t actually told anybody her real name, but she was willing to tell everyone her life’s story. At the first meeting She revealed that she started going to these support groups when she was a kid, after her dad died. At the second meeting she explained that she used to be the manager of a pretty popular band in Queens, but that the only member left was the drummer. By the third meeting she had told them that her mother, her fiancé, and her best friend had all died in the snap. She explained that the only reason she hadn’t been evicted was that her landlord had been dusted too.

After that meeting Steve asked her if she needed a place to stay or any help with her rent. She smiled at him sadly and asked if he wanted to grab coffee with her instead. “I haven’t had a friend in a while and I think you might be in the same boat,” she said as she was walking towards one of the 3 coffee shops in Brooklyn that had a full pay roll. 

Steve had been in the Polka dot coffee shop with Natasha a couple of times. God he missed her. He had only seen her twice since they left Wakanda, but he couldn’t fault her from running away from her life, that’s what most people did. 

Steve was brought out of his daze when Rain said, “I’m going to get a tattoo today.”

“Of what?”

“I found a note my mom wrote me when I was a kid, after my dad died it said ‘In times of darkness, always search for the light’ and she signed it. I’m going to get the note tattooed in her handwriting.” She took a sip of the tea that she had gotten and blinked away the beginnings of tears, “I die my hair to look like Michelle’s,” Steve looked at Rain’s bright purple hair and remembered her mentioning her best friend, “And I wear my engagement ring still, even though Ryan has been gone for months, so I figured I would memorialize my mother somehow. She was my hero, and that thought saved me in more ways than one.”

Steve grabbed her and and squeezed it, trying to tell her without words that he was there for her. He was shocked by his next set of words, “Can I come too?”

She grinned at him, reminding him in every way that even though Bucky wasn’t physically with him, he wasn’t really gone. That was how Steve Rogers ended up with the names of everyone he lost printed neatly on his ribs, and the name “James Buchannon Barnes” right on his chest, where his dog-tags hit. 

Rain didn’t come to the support group the next week. Steve found out later that she spent the day at her father’s grave.

She came in the week after with a new nose ring and fresh purple in her hair. She sat next to him and offered him a small smile. Steve spoke first. He talked about Bucky and how seeing him vanish to dust made him actually want to kill somebody for the first time in his life. He talked about how even fighting Nazis couldn’t prepare him for the hell that Thanos had put him through. After his turn, Rain had offered her hand as a form of comfort.

The members of the support group went around talking about their loved ones until they finally reached Rain. She was touching the back of her neck, the place with her new tattoo. 

She looked directly at the ground when she spoke, “There are days where I wish I had dissolved into dust along with them… I don’t want to die, but living with this guilt is exhausting, and living without them is excruciating.”

She looked around at the rest of the group before continuing, “My fiancé and I always joked that if the world ended we would got to costco and live out the apocalypse there, but I always had a sneaking suspicion that if the world ended I’d off myself. Again, I never wanted to die. I just… I think there is a difference between living and surviving. That was my plan. 

But the snap didn’t make me want to end it. It enraged me. I’m not just surviving, I’m living and I’m full of spite. By sheer existence I oppose Thanos and everything that he did. I’m going to make it through this, and he won’t see it coming. Thanos left the avengers alive… He left the people who stopped the attack on Manhattan 5 against 100,000.” She looked at Steve the way little kids who saw him at the museum did, with absolute wonder, like he could do anything.

She continued, ”And the thing he forgets, is that people aren’t going to let him steal our lives and our love. Balance my ass… Thanos will fall and we will get peace. The world will get better, and we will keep moving forward, and that is a threat.” In that moment Steve Rogers understood why she called herself Rain. She was reminding herself and everyone around her to keep searching for light.

Steve didn’t linger at the meeting like he normally did. He looked at Rain one last time to see if she was ok. She offered him the same smile that Bucky always did right before they did something stupid, and with that he ran home to call Natasha.

Natasha picked up after 2 rings. He didn’t let her get in a word before saying “Come back to New York.”

Her response was a simple “ok” before the line went dead.

Standing in front of the Avengers (and a raccoon and an alien) for the first time since fighting Ultron was exhilarating. For the first time in a while Steve had hope. “We are going to save the world.”

Tony looked at Steve and spoke to him for the first time in 2 years, “You sound so sure.”

“A fallen hero told me that in times of darkness, we should always search for the light. We are going to find that light and save the world. Things are going to get better, and that is a threat.”

Natasha grinned at him, “I think you have a line that follows that.”

Steve smiled. “Avengers Assemble!”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: I'm not ready for endgame


End file.
